Children 'need risk to develop independence'

Children risk growing up "unable to stand on their own two feet" because they are being "smothered in cotton wool" by overprotective adults, the leader of Britain's prep schools said yesterday.

Simon Carder, chairman of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools, said children were in danger of leaving school reluctant to take risks because of a growing tendency to give them "everything on a plate".

"Things are ready-made, ready-cooked, fail-safe and foolproof," said Mr Carder, head of Eagle House School in Sandhurst, Berks.

"Is there enough room to show initiative, to make do with what you have got, to plan, to think, to experiment and to learn from making mistakes?

"There is a danger, too, that in trying, commendably, to protect children we become increasingly reluctant to expose them to anything that might possibly constitute a challenge."

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As well as the traditional three Rs, children needed to master a total of 10 skills, including resourcefulness, resolve, reliability, responsibility, restraint and respect.

"If we can arm children with these 10 Rs and provide them with a very broad curriculum that encourages creativity and challenges pupils physically, morally and spiritually, we can send them out into the world, proud in the knowledge that we have educated a whole new generation," he said at the association's conference in York.

Mr Carder's comments came a day after a teacher was jailed for leading a school trip to the Lake District in which a 10-year-old boy died after jumping into a "plunge pool".

Teachers' unions said after the hearing that the jailing of Paul Ellis for manslaughter would put the future of school trips in jeopardy.

Mr Carder said the fate of Mr Ellis was likely to make teachers think twice about taking children on trips.

"Of course we have to make sure that expeditions are safe," he said. "But I think there is a danger that teachers will not initiate them, for fear that things like this will happen."